HP Unveils Aggressive New Pricing Model to Establish Workstation Price/Performance Leadership; Key Player in IA-64 Architecture Development Named Workstation Systems Division General Manager

Business Wire, Jan 20, 1997

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 20, 1997-- Hewlett-Packard Company today unveiled a new workstation and 3-D graphics pricing model that provides customers with savings of more than 40 percent and affirms HP's commitment to industry leadership in technical-workstation price/performance. The company also announced that it has named 28-year HP veteran Chris Christopher general manager of the Workstation Systems Division. Christopher will lead the implementation of HP's new pricing model and strategy to enable HP to become the volume technical-workstation leader.

These announcements support and dovetail with recent organizational initiatives made by HP. These include the Workstation Systems Division consolidation to Ft. Collins, Colo., and a strategic plan to implement a PC-like manufacturing cost structure to reduce expenditures, enabling HP to pass the resulting economies-of-scale savings to its customers.

"Today's announcements signal the beginning of a new era, not only for HP's workstation business, but, we believe, for the entire industry," said William V. Russell, general manager of HP's Technical Computing Business Unit. "Market conditions in the UNIX system workstation industry are changing at a breakneck pace. HP is leading the industry by proactively implementing a strategy that will reduce costs and maintain the highest levels of quality that our customers demand."

WORKSTATION REPRICING

Maintaining its commitment to provide superior, cost-effective graphics workstation solutions, HP today shattered prices on its B-Class, J-Class and C-Class workstations, enabling HP to further extend its competitive position in the strategic markets of MDA(1) and EDA.(2)

The HP VISUALIZE Model B132L, reduced in price by 41 percent, delivers outstanding processing and 2-D/3-D graphics performance. The HP VISUALIZE Model B132L with HP VISUALIZE-EG 2-D graphics was reduced in price from $11,500 to $6,795. In addition, the HP VISUALIZE Model B132L with HP VISUALIZE-24 3-D graphics has been reduced in price by 27 percent, from $17,700 to $12,995. This system delivers 25 percent greater integer performance and better overall price/performance than the Model Ultra 1/140 from Sun Microsystems(3), which costs $9,000 with TurboGX 2-D graphics and $15,000 with Creator 3-D graphics.

The power desktop HP VISUALIZE Model C180 with HP VISUALIZE-EG was reduced in price by 36 percent, from $33,000 to $20,995. In addition, the HP VISUALIZE Model C180 with HP VISUALIZE-24, formerly $38,000, is now $25,995. This system delivers 60 percent greater integer performance and overall price/performance than the Ultra1 200E with Creator 3-D from Sun Microsystems, which costs $24,500(4). This new pricing provides significant 3-D graphics price/performance advantages over similarly configured competitive systems. For example, the world's fastest desktop graphics workstation, the HP VISUALIZE Model C180-XP, priced at $35,000, delivers more than 180 percent faster 3-D graphics performance than Silicon Graphics' 195MHz Indigo2 R10000 Maximum IMPACT(5), which is priced at $51,000.

Pricing on HP's dual-processor power deskside J-Class workstations was reduced by up to 37 percent. The HP VISUALIZE Model J210XC with HP VISUALIZE-EG was reduced in price from $32,000 to $19,995. This system can be upgraded to a dual-processor PA-8000-based configuration for only $15,000.

HP also announced 28 percent price reductions on its 3-D graphics systems, system-memory price reductions of up to 25 percent and mass-storage price reductions of up to 11 percent for all PA-RISC workstations.

NEW WORKSTATION DIVISION GENERAL MANAGER

New Workstation Systems Division general manager Chris Christopher will report directly to Russell and will assume responsibility for the development, marketing, manufacturing and business management of all HP technical workstations worldwide.

Christopher will oversee HP's systems, graphics hardware and software technologies research, development and marketing, as well as technical-workstation product marketing and product and program marketing for MDA and EDA activities. Christopher also will manage the consolidation of HP's Chelmsford, Mass. operations into the Ft. Collins facility, where he will be based.

"HP's technical-workstation business is an extremely strategic and important one for HP, and Chris Christopher will play a key role in enhancing the competitiveness of this organization," said Russell. "Chris' world-class engineering and management experience and proven track record in driving strategic programs, such as the collaborative HP-Intel IA-64 initiative, make him uniquely qualified to lead the division forward and succeed in this fiercely competitive workstation market."

Christopher has served since 1992 as general manager of the Systems Technology Division. In this position, Christopher managed the development of core technology (CPUs, infrastructures and compilers), SPUs and systems integration. During this time, Christopher has played an instrumental role in forging a critical relationship with Intel and in developing the highly strategic IA-64 architecture. His experience will enable HP to bring to market new UNIX(6) system and NT-based workstations based on this architecture.